


waking nightmares

by thunder_and_stars



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Angst, How Do I Tag, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 11:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27350074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_and_stars/pseuds/thunder_and_stars
Summary: After Howard dies and comes back, everything should be fine. Everything is fine. Right? It's all fine now.Then why is Vince crying?
Relationships: Howard Moon & Vince Noir, Howard Moon/Vince Noir
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	waking nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone's probably out of character, because this is my first time writing them and also I'm not that used to them yet because I haven't actually finished the show. I'm not completely happy with how it came out, but I didn't know what about it was giving me issues, so I'm posting it anyway.
> 
> Hope you enjoy.
> 
> (Howard kind of sucks in the beginning of this, but that wasn't really my intention, so sorry about that.)

The keeper’s hut was dark in the late night quiet. Rather, it  _ was  _ quiet, until Vince got started again. Vince was great, really, and Howard liked spending time with the sunshine kid, but it was the middle of the night, and he was tired.

“Howard?” Vince was whispering, but it was still loud and echoing in the peaceful dark.

Howard stayed quiet, pretending he was still asleep.

“Howard. Are you awake? Howard, come on,” Vince whined.

Howard huffed and stayed quiet. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with Vince and whatever chaotic story or idea or question he had at the time.

Vince sniffed softly and turned on his side, away from Howard. Howard wasn’t going to get up and comfort him just because he was annoyed that Howard wouldn’t pay attention to him. It was late, and they had to work in the morning, and Howard was tired.

He nestled into his sleeping bag a little more, and fell back into a gentle slumber.

Howard did not get the sleep he wanted, and he was woken up shortly after. It was still dark in the tent, and he wasn’t sure what had woken him. That was, until he heard Vince.

Howard couldn’t make out more than the vague outline of Vince in his sleeping bag, though he could definitely hear. Vince was whimpering, almost, just above a whisper, telling Howard to wake up.

“Wake up. Come on, Howard, wake up, please.” Vince’s voice cracked and trailed off, and Howard propped himself up on his elbow with a sigh.

“I’m awake, Vince,” Howard told him. “What?” His voice was a little harsher than he intended, but he was tired.

Vince didn’t reply.

“Vince, what do you want?”

Nothing.

“Stop waking me if you’re not even gonna talk,” Howard said, slumping back to the floor.

When morning came, sooner than Howard would have liked, and the sun spilled through the windows, he quickly got ready for work. Vince took far longer. This wasn’t unusual, in and of itself, because Vince managed to make getting ready for anything take an insane amount of time.

The part that was unusual was how long it took Vince to get out of his sleeping bag. He stayed burrowed into it until Howard was elsewhere, and he quickly locked himself in the small bathroom. Howard was called into Fossil’s office again, though, and by the time he saw Vince again, he had almost forgotten all the weirdness of the morning and the night before.

Vince was waiting for him, feeding some of the smaller animals, bright grin plastered on his face. 

“What’d Fossil want?” Vince asked, by way of greeting. Howard shrugged. He wasn’t honestly sure what the man had wanted from him.

Howard left Vince feeding the animals -- he needed a break from Vince’s chaos, and he needed a little bit of quiet time to make up for his missed sleep -- and went to do other chores around the zoo. 

He felt a flash of guilt as Vince’s face fell, just for a second, before the smile was back. “Where’re you going, Howard?” Vince asked. Howard’s annoyance flared, and he stalked away without a word.

He managed to avoid Vince for the rest of the day, until it was time to head back to the keeper’s hut. He passed Naboo on the way, who gave him a brief glare, and didn’t think much of any of it until he stepped into the hut he shared with Vince.

Vince was curled onto the ratty couch, cup of tea in his hands, and his smile was concerningly absent. This was a dumb prank or something, Howard thought, to get back at him for being distant last night and during the day.

Leaving Vince alone, he quickly ate, rolled out his sleeping bag, and laid down to sleep. “Night, Vince,” he said, then turned on his side and quickly fell asleep before Vince could respond.

Howard almost punched Vince when he was woken again in the middle of the night. He was getting ready to, and then he heard a faint, muffled sob come from Vince’s sleeping bag, and he quickly stopped himself.

“Vince?” he asked, voice softened, hand reaching over to pull Vince from his sleeping bag. Vince was shaking, and he made a small noise in the back of his throat.

“Howard,” he mumbled, hoarse and weak.

“What’s up, Vince?”

The lump that was Vince in his sleeping bag sat up, curling into a small ball. “Bad dream.”

Oh.

“What kind of bad dream?” Howard asked, moving carefully towards Vince. He didn’t like being touched, found it annoying and uncomfortable, but he knew Vince thrived on it.

His fingers found Vince’s shoulder, and Vince flopped against Howard’s chest, arms wrapped around the larger man. Howard almost recoiled, pulled Vince away from him, but he didn’t.

“What was your dream, Vince?” he asked.

Vince started talking, fast and shaky and very much muffled by the way his face was pressed into Howard’s chest. He carefully pried the smaller man back a little bit, enough that he could see his face and hear him.

Vince looked up at him, eyes red and damp, and his lip trembled horribly.

Howard waited for Vince to talk, forcing himself to not get fed up, at least until he heard about the dream. If all of this was about a broken nail or a haircut, he was going to smack Vince.

“You,” Vince mumbled, trying to blink back tears.

Howard waited for the dig at him, how the dream was about Howard’s awful clothes or hair or something equally stupid yet still hurtful.

“You were dead,” Vince said, and dropped his head down quickly as he let out another strangled half-sob.

_ Oh _ .

“I came back, Vince,” Howard reminded the smaller man. “You brought me back, and I’m still here.”

“But you were gone,” Vince wailed, clinging to Howard like a limpet. “You were gone, and I was alone.”

Vince was never alone. Everyone liked Vince, or they at least talked to him.

“For a few hours,” Howard said. He was quickly getting frustrated by Vince again. Vince was upset because Howard had left him on his own for half a day, but Howard had been the one who  _ died _ , the one who had to deal with the creepy taxicab and Monkey Hell and haunting Vince just to talk to him.

Vince had been fine when he haunted him. He hadn’t cared. Why was this such a big deal now?

“It was three weeks, Howard,” Vince said quietly. “You were dead for  _ three weeks _ . Maybe it was a few hours for you, but that’s not what it was like for me.”

Howard should smack himself, at this point. He never listened to Vince when he wanted to talk about something. He should shut up and listen, for once.

“You were dead, Howard, and I tried to get you to wake up but you wouldn’t, and I thought it was just a joke, but you were cold and not moving and turning blue.” Vince talked a mile a minute, voice still trembling and raw and so, so pained.

How had Howard missed this? Howard had always assumed someone else had found him, maybe Fossil, or one of the other zookeepers, or even some visiting children. He had never thought Vince might have been the one to find him, not once.

“You were dead, and nobody else cared, and there was nothing I could do, because I’m not smart like you, just useless and stupid. And then I tried to make your funeral nice, but I couldn’t find the song, and it was so hard because nobody else cared and I had to do it all on my own but I couldn’t think.” 

Vince paused, rubbing at his eyes with the sleeve of the pink shirt he was wearing. Howard’s heart broke a little more, looking at Vince, who was so upset about this, who was so small and so hurt. Vince was the sunshine kid. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“I couldn’t sleep while you were gone. I woke up screaming with nightmares, and then I stopped sleeping altogether, because when I closed my eyes, you were there, dead, and I was useless. Naboo gave me some potion thing to keep the nightmares at bay and give me good dreams, but it just made it so I dreamt about you, back when you were still alive, and then I woke up and you were dead and it was so horrible I couldn’t breathe.”

“Vince,” Howard started, then trailed off when he couldn’t think of anything to say. He settled for pulling the smaller man into a hug. “I’m sorry.”

Vince pulled away, scrubbing at his eyes with his knuckles, and shook his head. “No, no, I’m sorry, Howard, it’s stupid, you were the one who died, I shouldn’t be upset, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, quickly dissolving into tears again.

“I’m still here,” Howard said again. “Right here. You got me back. I’m not going anywhere, Vince, and if I do, you’ll get me back. You always do.”

When morning rolled around again, sunlight pouring in through the curtains, the two of them were curled up on the couch, blanket splayed across them, Vince’s head on Howard’s shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> The end probably sucks because my friend who will never read this has banned me from writing angsty endings but I don't know how to write happier stuff. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated.


End file.
